


Static Noise

by Las



Category: Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Las/pseuds/Las
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gaia dies, the Planeteers disband and scatter. Wheeler goes back to New York and deals with inadequate endings. Smudges of Wheeler/Linka. Mostly Wheeler-Gi friendship. Mostly Wheeler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Static Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to offyourknees for betareading.

Wheeler doesn't think too hard about it: he was a Planeteer, he's not a Planeteer anymore. End of story if he can help it.

He still has his ring. When he moved into his apartment, he put it in his drawer for safekeeping. He went back to look for it a few months ago and it was gone. Wheeler ransacked drawer after drawer after drawer, thinking--and maybe yelling-- _this is weird_ and _this is wrong_ and _where the fucking fuck is it._ And nothing. There was a bout of pacing and cursing, followed by desperate reasoning: it should still be in this room somewhere. Definitely. There was no reason for the ring to be anywhere else. It was here. It was here, somewhere, and there was nothing to worry about. Here, somewhere. Somewhere.

If the only conclusion was an unsatisfactory one, then let him have no conclusion at all. Thus, Wheeler decided not to think about it anymore. It was too unsettling to think about.

His bathtub is in his kitchen, which is weird and kind of annoying, but also kind of funny in a way. He remembers hearing about the history of the bathtubs-in-kitchen phenomenon in New York from someone who used to be a tour guide, but Wheeler can't remember most of it anymore.

He washes his socks in the bathtub. He works two jobs to keep this apartment, and none of them have anything to do with saving the environment.

"We should use email more," is the first thing Gi says when Wheeler picks up the phone. She's somewhere in Southeast Asia doing something benevolent with natural gas and there's static on the line. "I bet email would be cheaper."

"I don't have a computer," says Wheeler. He tosses the last of his socks into the tub.

"How are you?"

"What would you think if I sold my apartment?"

"I don't know. What _would_ I think? I've never even seen it."

"I don't spend a lot of time in it anyway. I work, then I work, then I go out. I can probably get by just crashing in different people's homes every other night."

"I don't know. You weren't the easiest person to live with, you know."

"What do you mean? I did that toilet seat thing for you girls, didn't I? And I always flushed, didn't I?"

Gi laughs. "See? Your thinking that those things alone make one a good roommate should send warning signals already."

"What? Come on. Dude, Gi…"

Memories are traded, chuckles exchanged, and when the time comes to hang up the phone, he's smiling. That's enough sometimes.

  
+

  
It's kind of scary to think that they're all on their own now. Really on their own.

If humans could mess things up so badly even with a spirit of the earth watching over them, then how much worse would it be now that the spirit of the earth was dead? The decay is difficult to see here in New York City, where everything is man-made, or in the process of being made. (They had a memorial service back at Hope Island, a strange and confused affair with just the five of them. Ma-Ti wondered whether they should summon Captain Planet so he could pay respects as well, but his question was vaguely shrugged away.)

In his city, there is always newness.

The pandas are dying out but there's a new musical opening on Broadway. Bald eagles are losing their habitat but there's a guitarist in SoHo reinventing a whole genre. People are starving in India or Kenya or wherever but hey, there's hot pizza out of the oven in Little Italy, come on down. Wheeler arrived back in New York years ago with a lot on his mind, and the city quickly worked its magic. It's easy when the victim is willing.

 _The Planeteers were never like this_ , he thought, settling into his new network of friends, his new life.

"Jay Leno," Wheeler replies, between chews of cereal. The only light in the living room comes from the TV and a lamp on the coffee table. "Yours?"

"Local soap opera," says Gi.

"Can you understand what they're saying?"

"I'm learning. I mean, I know nouns and adjectives, most of them from work, but I can't put them together. It's kind of hard to try to use 'possible mechanical failure' in casual conversation."

A silence settles in. A comfortable silence, which annoys Gi, but only because of what it does to the phone bills. She initiates the calls because these days Wheeler can't afford to.

"Hey. Gi?"

"Mmm?"

"How is it that, out of everyone in the Planeteers, we're the only ones who end up keeping in touch?"

"I don't know. Only ones? Maybe Linka keeps in touch with Kwame."

"Maybe."

"Do you miss her?"

"Why not?"

"What kind of an answer is that?"

"Huh?"

Pause. "Never mind. When was the last time you talked with her?"

"A... year ago, year and a half, maybe..."

"Why don't you call her again?"

Wheeler frowns though no one can see. "Do you? Call her, I mean."

"No."

"So why should I?"

He hears her heave an exaggerated sigh. "Men."

  
+

  
Wheeler used to call Linka every time he felt like believing.

He called her up and he'd just lie sprawled on his couch, listening to her prattle on about her birds, her family, and her work as a renewable energy whatever. It was nice. He'd stare out the window, the one with duct tape on the cracks, and wonder if a Russian winter is so different from winter in New York. Linka still believed in what she was doing. Wheeler gathered himself around her conviction and tried to stay warm. Sure, it was hell on the phone bills, but he didn't mind so much.

It's hard to start something again once you've stopped, especially if it involves another person.

Wheeler doesn’t know why he stopped calling Linka.

His phone stayed devoid of the past until he found the scrap of paper on which they all wrote their contact information before the Planeteers disbanded for good. (He had committed Linka's to memory.)

Apparently Ma-Ti had moved. Kwame's phone was disconnected, which worried Wheeler but there was nothing he could do. So he called the last name on the list. The rest just figured.

  
+

  
After the sort-of memorial, Wheeler found Linka suppressing tears on the beach. What he came up with to say was, "It sucks, doesn't it?"

So it wasn't a Hallmark card. Whatever.

Linka wiped her eyes and said, "Humanity sickens me."

"Naw, babe, we're not that bad."

Wheeler suspected Linka had something to say to that. Something outraged and cutting, but there was this look of futility that passed over her eyes and she continued not crying. Wheeler wrapped his arms around her. She put her head on his shoulder. It felt good. He said, "Just let it out."

It was the wrong thing to say, though he didn’t know why. What he knew was that it was a bad sign when he felt her body stiffen in his arms. Linka shoved him away and stormed off, leaving him to yell defensive questions at her back.

Later that month, during the flight back to the mainland, Ma-Ti said, "My ring doesn't work anymore."

"No way," said Gi. "That's crazy."

"It still works," said Ma-Ti. "But... _Heart_." His ring twinkled like a Christmas light on the second of January, and winked out.

"I guess it would make sense," said Kwame, "since Gaia has... passed away."

"It would be interesting to summon Captain Planet now," said Ma-Ti, "to see what he is like with all those powers but less than half the heart."

Wheeler looked at his own ring. " _Fire_."

"Wheeler, stop that," said Linka. "It's a hazard."

"Sorry." He put the fire out by pretending to eat it, which made Ma-Ti chuckle.

"I just said it was a hazard," Linka muttered. And Wheeler smiled, because she was smiling, too.

  
+

  
Sunrise. Wheeler sits on the kitchen counter with the receiver tucked between his face and shoulder, and watches the sky change colour over the lower east side.

"What do you mean?" Gi is saying.

"I don’t know." He leans back against the cupboards. "I don’t know."

"Come on, Wheeler, where’s your head? What were you expecting? That we all grow up and be five different Captain Planets, flying around and swimming in lava saving baby seals?"

"It was such a wild past," Wheeler cut in. "Dude. Fighting international eco-terrorists with magic rings… That’s wild. After something like that, wouldn't you expect better things out of life? Bigger things? But now we're living the Joe Blow life and it's crazy. Only it's not. And that's the problem.”

"Is it."

"Kind of."

There is a pause that is almost negligible. Almost. "I don't think I'm living a Joe Blow life," says Gi. "I think I am doing something big."

And Wheeler says, "Oh."

"Wheeler, life isn't one amazing thing after another. It isn't a series of grand finales. We're all just trying the best we can."

"I know. I know."

"My friends and I here," says Gi, "we were eating in a Chinese restaurant one time, and you know what my fortune cookie said?"

"What?"

"He is happiest who does not expect to be happy all the time."

"That's a good one."

"Yeah."

They stay on the phone for a while longer, rambling their way back to inconsequential small talk. After the proper 'good evening/mornings' are exchanged and the phones are hung up, Wheeler takes a few seconds to stare into space. Then he makes coffee.

The clock says it's seven-ten. The light through the kitchen window says it's morning. Wheeler never thought he'd be an early riser until these phone calls started and the time zones made him deal.

He takes a sip, and frowns. The milk made the coffee lukewarm. He downs it.

The radio's on, just in case there are reports of arson.

Wheeler puts his empty cup in the sink and wanders into his bedroom to set the time for tomorrow. Gi said she'd have some work to do and no time call. No use waking up at four in the morning for nothing. He grabs his jacket off a chair, heads out the door, and presses the elevator button just as Gi's fortune cookie settles comfortably into his mind. He's got plenty of time for a morning walk. Wheeler never thought he'd be the type for morning walks either. There are lots of things he never thought he'd be.

He has time. That's enough sometimes.


End file.
